No Secret Ballot for Massachusetts — Tough Luck

Rebuffed in Congress in their effort to eliminate secret-ballot elections in the workplace through the Employee Free Choice Act, organized labor has turned to the states. But, because the anti-democratic “card check” is so unpopular — people understand the threat of coercion it poses — the labor unions have limited their push, relying on their allies in the legislatures and governor’s offices. The approach means that only public employees are being deprived of the workplace ballot.

The 10-cent surcharge, which may raise up to $14 million over the two years, will go for education campaigns centered around politics and several issues, notably including health care and the right to organize. “The way we focus on organizing and politics is very different” from the AFL-CIO, Burger added.

The convention resolution approving the assessment, and laying out the federation’s overall plan for the next two years, says the money will be used “to build a state-of-the-art coordinated political program to ensure the election of a pro-labor president in 2008 and pro-labor majorities in the Senate and House in order to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.”